Wednesday 13 August 2014

Wrecking-Brawls-Deep

Who says nothing happens in Eve over the summer?

I’ve mentioned before the main reason I dropped out of Serene Vendetta was the lack of PvP. Or at least the willingness to PvP. The guys kept asking me to organise roams for them but when I did, two guys turn up and only one of those was on time. That’s not to say the leadership weren’t up for it – they were just bad at it.

Rubix>Guys, there’s an Orca on the static. Looks like he’s slightly off the wormhole
Traba>Quick, everyone warp to the static!
Jay> Who’s the pilot?
Rubix> He’s from TLC
Jay> There is no way that is not a trap.
Traba>I don’t care, I want an Orca kill

To be absolutely fair, they did get themselves an orca kill. In exchange for a zealot, two proteus’ an Armageddon, a buzzard and four pods. There are other gems like a reluctance to engage a 6 barge mining fleet in a C4 because it looked like a trap (which I guaranteed them it wasn’t). The gung-ho FC  then ordered everyone to reship to T1 to engage them – just incase. It wasn’t a trap, and some got away.

I had mentioned my lack of pew lamentations and in typical ‘I-told-you-so’ fashion, Ludis did say “well, what did you expect from an ex-Li3 corp?”. I didn’t even know what that meant, but I’m sure it was a brutal putdown to anyone fluent in the machinations of dullsec. Just as I left, they were forming an alliance to, according to Natasha Donnan’s forum post, “We want to be able to form a 40 man t3 fleet and go stomping down the c5 superhighway.” Glad I got out! Been there, done that, then used the t-shirt to wax my car. Can’t win fights? The solution is simple; bring moar guys!

While they were busy assembling WH space’s new blob, I was getting blueballed hard. Monday night and after rounding off some finishing touches to the previous blog entry, comms were alight which battle-chatter. USYSC were heavily engaged with Mordus Angels in a direct null. Logi was going down, so I ship up into a scimitar and join Gibs in his on the K162. Apparently, the guys were at the gate to a complex after scanning down some ratters. The only problem for me was the fleet was full and the boss was AFK. After 6 minutes of cursing and cussing, we managed to find a solution and get me on grid. By the time I landed on grid, the Angels had warped off. Our guys started to loot the field as a few of them went home to go AFK, but they were taking their time about it, so I burned out to orbit. A minute or two later, I was just about to mention we really want to not be here when the reason for not wanting to be here warped back in and started tackling what was left on grid. The Mordus Angels had the numbers now and it was looking grim, so ‘get out’ was called. Already being clear of the melee before it started, I had no trouble warping out and getting home, leaving a couple of tackled ships behind.

We reshipped to armour and exchanged fire in small skirmishes on the WH, but by the time we had enough people back at keyboard, Mordus Angels had re-thought committing to an engagement and docked back up. It was looking like that was that, but my hopes of getting a fight were rekindled as a new signature appeared. Jumping into my Stratios, I found an incoming WH from a C2. A bunch of frigates and an Exqueror Navy waited on the other side. As backup arrived, the frigates scattered and the Exqueror was pulling away from me fast. Zooming in, it looked like it was a shield tanked, railgun-boat and it was going like the clappers. I could see the idea behind it, but surely there’s a better hull he could use. That’s unless the purpose was to blueball tacklers, in which case, it worked a charm. I was getting a strong feeling that it was time for me to take a break.

Upon returning to the keyboard, I saw that O’nira was scouting the other incoming null we had and had found another C5 connecting to the same system. He’d posted a D-scan result in corp and I recognised the tag instantly – Serene Vendetta “Oh, we’re fighting these guys.” O’nira got a D-scan of their fleet, which was moving and I reshipped an alt into a cov-ops legion to keep eyes in the nullsec while I got swapped the Stratios for a Loki. The Brawls Deep fleet headed O’nira off at the connection to our WH and bubbled up. They definitely had the numbers on us and had brought plenty of logi. None of that bothered us. You fly smart with a balanced composition, you can negate the numbers advantage. 6 Legions, 4 Proteus’, 2 Loki, 1 Arazu, 1 Falcon, 4 guardians and a devoter. O’nira skipped through their fleet back home to reship. Of course, the disadvantage of all this happening in null was, thanks to local, it was obvious my alt was sat there watching them.

Traba Regina> o7
Val> Hey there Trabs
Traba Regina> we got a fight here mate?
Val> Give us a sec
Val> Can't quite pull your numbers, so you'll have to wait ;)

Some of our guys were worried about the sheer number of Legions they were fielding, but while I was chatting to Traba in local, I was using the opportunity to take a closer look at their ships.

Jay> They’re all HAM
Myst> If they are HAM, they’ll have neuts fitted
Jay> No, they’ve not got the right subs. They’re full HAM, all 6 of them.

That made things a lot easier. It was a fleet devoid of any subtlety. All dps and no flexibility. It’s like some guy turning up on your doorstep in full plate mail and holding a Morningstar, asking for a fight while forgetting you can simply slip a simple poignard under his bascinet. With a number of us dual-boxing, we prepared said poignard. 5 Proteus, 4 Tengus, 2 Lokis, 2 Legions, Phobos, an Astarte and an Archon to level the field. As the fleet assembled, Natasha Donnan decided to add a cheeky comment in local.

Natasha Donnan> aww, we didn't kill your venture fleet :)

Now, that was a real shame because Nat is just about the nicest guy you’ll meet in Eve. Easy going and a good laugh, but haughty remarks that imply he was entitled to kill the venture fleet are a good way of making yourself primary. Although I can kind of understand why he’d do it. Brawls had obviously scouted the system, seeing it was my new home, had the intention of making me regret leaving by showing everyone they were big boys now. I’d probably want to do the same, had the situation been reversed. However, I’d probably not be so brazen about it – just incase.

So, as we’d already established, Nat was primary. Our Tengu’s had rendered their mass of Guardians ineffective, and Nat’s Legion did not stand upto the punishment for very long [apologies for those links - eve kill was borked at time of writing - will amend later] and my autocannons sent his pod on the highsecexpress. Secondary had already been called but I threw in a couple of names over comms of who their likely FC’s were. Another Legion went down along with an Arazu before we brought the DPS to bear on their likeliest FC, Traba Regina. A couple of cycles of reps landed on his Legion but nowhere near enough to prevent him following Nat in decorating the battlefield with his own wreck. I made sure not to leave him any time to unplug his slave set. Traba may have been off the field, but with so much new blood in their group, I had no doubt there would be a secondary I didn’t know about. Cutting off the head of the beast didn’t seem so important with their reps all but nullified. Just to be sure, I’d positioned my Legion in a position to intercept the guardians. Decloaking, I burned for them to neut out the cap chain they’d managed to establish.

At this point, Brawls seemed to have adopted a similar tactic. I found both Jay and Val jammed out by the Falcon and my Loki was being lit up. What was unfortunate for them was on this occasion, I wasn’t FC. It was called earlier for someone who wasn’t dual-boxing to call targets, which ruled me out. Then, over comms, something reassuring from our carrier pilot:

Myst> Guys, make sure you broadcast when you’re in half shields
Jay> Err, I’m in half armour. Gonna need them reps.

Happily, I didn’t hit hull before the Archon attended the Loki, but annoyingly, the Falcon had me locked down. At this point, I take my hat off the that Falcon pilot (I believe it was Blackmoon Thrawn?). There was no let-up in the jams and without the Legion disrupting the Guardians cap, Brawls Deep were able to hold reps and I was becoming frustrated as another pod was there for the taking and just begging for some 220mm mercy. He was keeping Brawls very much in the fight and our damps were doing nothing to stop him. Fair play.

>Kill the pod. Come on, somebody, kill that pod!
Jay> Still jammed…

I decided to do something risky to try and get back into the fight. Jay was no longer primary and able to burn back to the WH though the bubble while Val was out by the guardians not tackled at all. I jumped Jay in and out, chancing polarisation while warping Val back and forth to a celestial to remove the attentions of the Falcon. It wasn’t long before I was back on grid, by which time Brawls Deep had brought reinforcements in the form of an Archon of their own and had upped the ante with a Naglfar. This was where our preparation fell slightly short. The response would have been a similar escalation on our part, but O’nira was realising and regretting that we still hadn’t brought several caps, including his Phoenix, back home. To make matters worse, the Naglfar pilots were engaged in subcaps. The Moros option was still there. It was just a matter of finding one.

Our Archon was suffering. Their subcaps were trying desperately to keep it out of jump range while the Naglfar gave it a pounding. Their own carrier wasn’t reacting quick enough to our dps, and with the neuts finally engaging the Guardians, we were able to pop a loki (+pod). We still had no Dreadnaught and the Archon didn’t look like it was going to last its triage cycle. All we could do from here was to get everything back into jump range for when it did happen. Brawls Deep responded by moving their support ships on top of the hole as well. As the Archon exploded, our fleet jumped home and I breathed a sigh of relief that the polarisation gamble worked in getting me back into the fight, but wasn’t done too late that I was left hanging out to dry. The Brawls Deep HIC pilot was quick to follow and put the bubble up. Our pilots who hadn’t already warped off held cloak, intelligently.

I say intelligently because from our point of view, it’s our home system. From here we can field not just another Carrier (which was called for when we realised they would pursue), but several. Not to mentioned the dreads. Brawls Deep must have thought they could smell blood. Our reps were gone (until we warp some more in, that is) so surely it would be a simple case of mopping up the field, right? I might have been thinking the same thing, but I would have been sure to check the mass on the WH first.

We primaried the Devoter. As their Guardians jumped in, the neut legions were right on top of them and soon took a hammering after the Devoter was forced to jump back out. Some of the guardians followed until the collapse of the WH meant the end of any kind of contest. The fleet jumped on blubess’ Legion and tackled the remaining guardians as 3TEARS tried to make a break for it in his Proteus, which hadn’t escaped my notice. 29km, 30km, 31km… links were down, so I had to apply a little more heat to the Loki that already had heat gauges full on the active racks. I started to close the distance and then – jammed again! The Falcon hadn’t returned to torment me, but Bigiboi had put dishonour drones on me, briefly jamming me until his Guardian went down. The Proteus still hadn’t managed to warp and I re-establishedlock and tackle before the fleet closed in to finish the job. Last off was a familiar name, but not from Serene Vendetta. Themad boatman I knew from a nullsec pewliday. He was formerly a member of the truly terrible ‘King’s Bastards’ whose fleets I delighted in wiping the floor with whenever they took one of their frequent roams through our space. As we finished off themad boatman’s guardian and capsule, Bigiboi greeted us in local.

Bigiboi > gf
Bigiboi > :)
Bigiboi > hey Jay
Jay Joringer > Hey Bigi
blubess > good fight. who wants to come over to my place and spoon?
Bigiboi > hehehe
Takashi Haul > gf guys
Takashi Haul > shame we jumped in =d

Normally I’d either try and hunt down stragglers in their pods if they were stuck or leave them to the indignation of having to safe up and self-destruct, but Bigi is a genuinely cool guy. He is absolutely terrible at impersonations or mimicking accents, and I think that is being quite kind. I thought it would be rude not to offer him bookmarks to highsec in exchange for a song. He was so gracious about it we gave him and blubess shuttles to go with their bookmarks out, and I got back in the stratios to make sure the way out was clear. I’ll apologise for the video. The delivery of Wrecking Ball was so heart-rending that it reduced me to tears. At least, I think heart-rending is the right way to describe it. No. Painful. Painful is what I meant.



It’s hard to convey a sense of time while describing all this, the fight with Mordus started before 1900 GMT and the end of the Brawls fight was at 22:30. The busy night didn’t quite stop there. While I was scouting the wrecked brawlers out, our C2 neighbors started jumping into system for a small skirmish with our guys. As I was heading back to reship [Natasha Donnan is inviting you do a conversation]

Natasha Donnan > fun fight
Natasha Donnan > i guess you guys won the isk war?

He went on to complain about the amount of EWAR we fielded. I didn’t apologise. You want to beat superior numbers, that’s how you do it. He did also mention that they were going to petition the WH closure, which we did laugh at a bit about. They must have assumed it was a fresh hole. Oh well. I’d like to take this opportunity to formally welcome Brawls Deep to Jay-space.

[Dizzy Uzzy is inviting you do a conversation]. Another one? Interesting.

Dizzy Uzzy > Ffs Jay why you take our fight?
Dizzy Uzzy > We were waiting to hit Brawls
Dizzy Uzzy > lol
Dizzy Uzzy > Looks like you had a good one though


Apparently he’d lost a Cynabal to Brawls Deep earlier in the night and his lowsec group were waiting to jump their fleet until they saw a few pods trickle back down the chain. He left saying that if I was ever around Kor-Azor, there’d always be a fight there for me. Well, that’s one connection I just might have to look out for and hope they bring the fight as good as Brawls Deep did.       

12 comments:

  1. Jay Jay Jay, I don't normally comment on your blog mainly cus I doubt anyone but me reads it There have been a few things over the past couple of months that have irked but I really couldn't be arsed to take them up with you. This time however I thought I would point out a few inaccuracies/biased opinions in this particular post and give a Brawls Deep version of events.

    Thanks for the nice guy bit btw, I try. however...

    ...there was always the willingness to pvp in sv, I believe the one op you are talking about in your opening paragraph where only a couple of people turned up to your fleet was simply because you yourself hadn't turned up to the one you had organised before. And since when did one failed op on your part mean a lack of willingness on everyone elses. You had lost interest in the corp by that point is the simple truth, we asked you to step up and you bailed. You never mentioned a lack of willingness as an issue to me or trabs, in fact the reason you gave us for leaving was because you didnt get on with another member. Still, Eve is a game, if you don't want to be in a corp, that's fine no hard feelings, move on.

    Now the venture fleet, that was simply to tell you that we were here for a proper fight. We didn't want to gank your pve antics, we knew that we were pretty much evenly matched in numbers so we brought it to you. I'm not sure how that comment translates into me being primary, but whatever.

    I was disappointed with your fleet composition I admit, 5 jamgus and an archon... seriously. When i asked you about it you said we had blobbed you! We didn't blob, we simply formed and asked if you wanted a fight. You had the advantage of us being on your hole and you had seen our fleet composition. You ended up forming a fleet with 1 less person than us, but you also brought a cap which took on the role of our 4 guardians. Your force multipliers were a little bit meh. You were right about our fleet composition though, it was a bit static and up front dps, but thats what we had and we wanted a fight, simples.

    Btw, we also had a dialogue with Dizzy, although it was slightly different to yours, and basically went along the lines of "If you are fighting Jay, make sure to punch him in the face from me" I dunno what you did to him but he is harbouring a bit of a grudge against you :)

    Now the hole closure thing. Yes we did assume it was a fresh hole, yes it was stupid of us to jump in without checking, but the assumption was only 1 cap could have been through, probably not much else there is plenty of mass left. Before I said anything about petitioning anything to you I asked if you had put mass through it, you said yourself that you were surprised that it had collapsed with what we had put through. That's when I mentioned petitioning as the maths didn't stack up. Seriously you do try to spin things man to make yourself look good at other people's expense.

    I'm not quite sure why Bigi came on your comms if i'm honest, we had a scanner still in your hole to probe the way out, I guess he just loves Karaoke.

    Anyway, all in all it was a fun fight. We lost the isk war on this occasion, but we learned a lot and gf was had. Till the next time o/

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    1. I'm under no illusions how Dizzy feels -no points for you there, Nat. As for the S.V ops, that's 100% accurate. I was there on comms with Watson who was the only guy who turned up on time. The other guy that's accusing me of not turning up to my own ops is the same dickhead that turned up an hour late. I was still on comms to tell him that with only 3 of us, it was canned. You weren't there at all.

      As for the fight, we started it with 5 less than you guys. You've taken the blob comment out of context and you know it. Once again, I'm not apologising for the fleet comp - going toe-to-toe against your fleet with 3/4 the numbers you had wouldn't have worked. We couldn't drop dps for the number of reps you had, so Archon. The comments about the lack of versatility in your fleet isn't only an observation - it's a hint for you guys. You say you've learned a lot, I honestly hope you have.

      Overall, I'm not interested if you agree with the content. It's my point of view. Yours is always going to be different, especially when you've not got the same facts (or are more willing to believe bullshit you've been told by a guy who can't tell time). Otherwise, you really ought to look at the contrast between the opening paragraphs and the closing paragraphs - the last line especially. It's a compliment.

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  2. I wasn't trying to score any points Jay, just putting a different perspective on things. I'm not going to comment on other things in your reply other than to say I still don't agree, but as you say, its your point of view and that's fine, I am also entitled to mine and so thought I would it forward.

    It was a fun fight, I don't want to detract from that by getting into a slanging match here over things it seems we will never agree on.

    Anyways, speak to you soon buddy.

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  3. I could quote a few sentences that made me laugh not as they are funny, the blogger is silly to manipulate facts with such an ease. Natasha forgot to add they let us wait at theire home door for quite a while to the point some went afk and waited for someone to ping once they initiate the warp to null wormhole. Numbers that have been mentioned in this blog are incorrect and i dont want to debate why they are incorrect neither to assume i simply see the way this bralg - brag blog - is beeing written. Dscan on screen i want to present is Brawls Deep fleet composition that formed up on hostile home hole Fleet setup add to it 1 legion that made this scan. No need to apologize for e-war you pulled with equal numbers neither the runaway you guys gave us and magically been lucky the wormhole even as had it mass checkd on both sides by Brawls, collapsed in matter of bugs connected to lately wormhole mechanic adjustments (myself when exitting theire home hole on stage 2 I did not land on the other side of null but it kicked me to Brawls nullsec entrance) That was agreed by both sides of engagement and made [USYSC] board isk efficient due to Brawls fleet beeing trapped... no wonder they uploaded just Bigiboi singing on theire comms instead of the actual fight.

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  4. Your fleet going AFK is not my problem. Nor is the wormhole. The spawn bug on a collapse has literally been around for years. Whenever it happens to me, I'd petition it, but I just tend to deal with it. I've already copped an unbelieveable amount of stick from missing fraps on that fight, otherwise it would be posted. It would have made it easier to back up what's already been said. However...

    Thank you for the Dscan result. I'll confirm it's legit. Let's compare that to Nat's lossmail; 9 involved parties (obviously not including the Archon and the 4 Tengu's that were on grid at that point). The timestamp on it is 21:11. The time on your screenshot is 21:19 - case and point. I wont deny our fleet comp changed as the fight went on and a couple more guys logging in/returned from AFK, but it didn't change things as much as Brawls cap backup. But don't let facts get in the way of some good old fashioned tears. Keep them coming.

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  5. If you're so smart you little crybaby then ud figure timestamp has no matter as this dscan was made before your fleet show up at ur home entrance,someone has to fire the scout for false reports... oh wait you vere the eyes at null... lol, no need to enlarge ur dick by facts manipulating guess thats what happen when the capital is not making it back home.
    Brawls had more balls to throw capitals that were not making it back home through the hole they came from... Good job Brawls Deep!

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    1. Ah, but it has everything to do with it. I was agreeing that what you had in that window was legit, then refering it back to the original supposition about comparitive number when we took the field, backed up by the killmail. Not quite sure how you've missed that, to be honest. So, good job "Death"!

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    2. "6 Legions, 4 Proteus’, 2 Loki, 1 Arazu, 1 Falcon, 5 guardians and a devoter." is where my screen is reffering too. I thought you'd figure it since it is your own article without needing me to mention it later on. There was no 5th guardian, falcon pilot was a late login reinforcement and we were talking about initial numbers which present accordingly to screenshot. So yeah, good job Death... for correcting - no problem! Btw you can ask me for help anytime you struggle with math bro, i will help with pleasure. Take care o7. =]

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    3. "I was agreeing that what you had in that window was legit"

      Tell you what 'bro', you help me with my maths and I'll help you out on your reading. Deal?

      Delete
  6. Off this blarg. Till next match mate, hopefully USYSC will knock at our home.

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  7. Hi Jay,

    Didn't know that you had a blog. Very good. Pity I missed that fight!

    Tuscor

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